


frequency

by cabinfever



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Friends With Benefits, M/M, except they keep convincing themselves they hate each other, side sheith towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 03:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: Keith asks, “Are you gonna come back?”Griffin’s hands pause in their quest to arrange his uniform. He looks over at Keith, eyes inscrutable and cast into shadow. “Not today, if that’s what you’re asking.”He’d figured. “But later?” He asks that because it’s easier thanis this what we do now?“Later,” Griffin says shortly, and he slams the door on the way out.It's hard not to be drawn to him, after all. Keith just wishes Griffin would care about the stars the way he does.





	frequency

**Author's Note:**

> this all started as a [prompt fill.](http://www.earthspaladins.tumblr.com/post/177238649603/frequency) and then it grew.
> 
> the title and fic were inspired by "frequency" by starset.

James Griffin sets off alarm bells in Keith’s head the moment they meet.

He’s got the look that means he was probably raised being told he’s the best. He certainly acts like it. And he’s good, sure, but it’s almost as if he _wants_ to be taken down a peg. He sneers at Keith and his shoddy clothes and the way that his hair is just a little too overgrown.

Keith scowls and resolves to grow it longer, just out of spite.

They make it through school together, and Griffin never stops competing. He never stops trying to win.

So of course he ends up at the Galaxy Garrison with Keith. Or rather, Keith ends up there with him. He was put in thanks to Shiro; the Garrison didn’t really want him anyway. Griffin’s rather fond of reminding him that.

“You can rise above that,” Shiro tells him during one of their days off. Out here in the desert, leaning against their bikes and sharing a bag of popcorn that Shiro picked up from the town outside the Garrison base, it's nice. “He’s just one person.” He punches Keith lightly on the shoulder, grinning, and it’s contagious enough that Keith ends up smiling too. “You’re the next hotshot pilot. I know it. Don’t let him get you down.”

It seems that Shiro’s optimism knows no bounds. Keith says, “You’re biased.”

“Mm, maybe I am,” Shiro admits. “Still, though.”

“Still,” Keith echoes. “He’s annoying. He’s been on my case since I met him. Competitive.”

Shiro asks, “Did you ever think that maybe you’re being just as competitive to him?”

Keith makes a noncommittal noise, kicking at the dirt. “Okay, but that’s just how I am.”

“Yeah, sure, cadet.” He checks the time, and his eyes widen. “Okay, I have to go. Adam’s class got canceled, so…” He trails off and shrugs, and a private smile blooms across his lips. “Well, I gotta go meet him.”

Keith snorts and elbows him. “You’re a romantic.”

“Sue me, Keith.”

“More like court martial.”

Shiro retorts, “You’re just a cadet. I’d like to see you try to take me down.” He reaches out to flick at Keith’s ear, but Keith ducks, and Shiro’s hand ends up ruffling his hair instead. “Hey, though,” Shiro says, getting a little more serious. “Try to make friends with the people in your class. I won’t be around forever. I’ve got...well, I’ve got missions. If you can build a strong team, that’ll stick with you.”

“Even Griffin?” Keith mutters. The name is like a curse in his mouth; he doesn’t like the taste of it.

“Even Griffin.” Shiro’s hand falls to Keith’s shoulder. “And his name is James, you know.”

“I know,” Keith says, shrugging him off. “He needs to earn that.”

Shiro frowns, but he says nothing.

Keith rides back to the Garrison alone.

 

* * *

 

The first time is a mistake.

That’s what both of them tell each other, breathing out the words between kisses in the most secluded stall in the cadets’ showers. Neither of them is entirely sure who made the first move, but now they’re here long past curfew, and Keith knows for a fact that they’re way in over their heads.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Griffin says, but he’s still kissing Keith, and really, that’s the part that Keith is focusing on the most right now. Nobody’s going to find them. Their COs don’t make the rounds until half an hour after curfew, and they rarely check the showers anyway.

And, okay, maybe that’s not exactly what Griffin meant, but thinking about the rules is easier than thinking about their motives for this. Keith thinks Griffin would agree.

Keith wraps his hand around both of them, pressing Griffin harder against the wall with one thigh between his to hold him up.

The warmth of Griffin against him sends him reeling, and he muffles a gasp in the column of Griffin’s neck. Griffin throws his head back to give him more access, and Keith ends up pressing open-mouthed kisses against his pale skin. He doesn’t do anything hard enough to leave a lasting, obvious bruise. Griffin may be an ass, but he’s still one of the best the Garrison’s got, and Keith’s not sadistic enough to make him a target for teasing or anything like that.

Besides, Keith gets enough of that already. He knows Griffin doesn’t need the extra pressure.

“Keep doing that,” Griffin begs, bringing him back into the moment. “Please.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Keith retorts, and maybe he is grinning a little bit, because this is fucking ridiculous.

It’s sloppy and it’s quick and it’s not quite right, but it figures that this is how it goes.

They come nearly on the same breath; Griffin holds on tightly to his arm, keeping them standing while they weather out the aftershocks. Keith, again, nearly laughs, because even in this, they were competing, and they were evenly matched once more.

Griffin hangs his head, catching his breath. The shower water drips down from the tips of his hair and runs down Keith’s chest instead. Keith looks down and realizes that his hands have migrated to Griffin’s hips while his heart stutters back down to its normal speed. He’s skinny, as Keith’s always known, but there’s a wonderful corded strength in his muscles. He’s shaking beneath Keith’s fingers, coming down from the high.

Keith almost ducks his head for another kiss, but now that they’re out of the heat of the moment, it just feels wrong.

“This is gonna get cold soon,” Keith says instead, and he steps back under the spray to wash off. There’s a pause, and then the warm bulk of Griffin joins him in the water. Keith doesn’t lean into him any more than he has to, and he wordlessly passes him the soap when he’s done with it. They don’t really say anything. By the way that Griffin’s eyes are downcast when Keith catches a glimpse of his face, they’re both way too in their heads about this.

When they’ve both finished with the shower, Griffin reaches to turn off the tap. He’s still quiet.

“Never tell anyone this happened,” Keith hisses, wrapping his towel around his waist. Even saying that feels weird, despite the fact that he really _does not_ want people knowing that he just hooked up with his arch nemesis in the bathroom. This isn’t how this should be, right? First times are supposed to be tender and clumsy and soft like in the movies. They’re supposed to be with someone you trust and admire and love.

Keith’s not sure Griffin is any of those things.

He’s also not sure he minds.

Regardless of how it was supposed to be, the memory of the showers stays with Keith for a long, long time. He never showers in that stall again, just because it feels wrong, but sometimes he heads to that back corner to shower, late at night when it’s just on the edge of being past curfew.

Sometimes Griffin’s in the next stall.

Sometimes it’s just the two of them in the bathroom.

They don’t do anything quite like that first time again, and neither of them says a word about it, but if they lean their heads against the shared wall of their stalls as they take themselves in hand, it’s not a problem. And if Keith bites out Griffin’s name on the tail end of a moan that he tries desperately to silence, Griffin doesn’t mock him for it. But that’s probably because Keith hears his own name from the other side of the wall.

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing about it does. By all rights, this should be a disaster. It sort of is.

But...it isn’t.

 

* * *

 

The Garrison ends up hating Keith just as much as Keith hates it. They agree that it would be best if Keith quietly left the academy and returned to where he came from. Keith is relieved, at least, that he’s aged out of the home and now he can inherit his dad’s place. Shiro’s disappointed, but he tries not to show it in favor of being supportive.

“Maybe later you can come back,” he says, “when you’re ready. You know I’ll put in a good word for you again.”

Shiro’s good words were what got Keith into this mess in the first place, but Keith’s not about to hurt him with that truth right now. Shiro had believed in him, and Keith let him down. So he shrugs, tossing his hair out of his face, and says, “Yeah. Maybe.”

It’s a lie, and Shiro probably knows it too.

So he goes back home to the desert.

His dad’s house is beat to hell. It’s weathered a hundred dust storms and more, but it’s still the same place Keith remembers from when he was a kid. Shiro helps bring him to and from town in order to pick up the necessary supplies to make the house habitable again. Keith’s got some pay in his account for the cargo flights he did before he dropped out, and his inheritance is available to him now, so he can afford all the parts he needs and more.

It’s slow work, these repairs. Shiro comes and helps when he can, but the Garrison needs him out past atmo and he can’t do too much extreme heavy lifting without needing more injections into his muscles. It gives Keith some good time to himself, at least. He gets a better tan in a few days out on his roof than he would during months of work at the Garrison.

Maybe he’ll get a dog. Dogs are good for keeping lonely people company, right?

He holds off on it for now. A dog deserves a good home. This place brings up a thousand and one memories, but it’s not the home he had. Not yet. There’s still work to be done.

Keith’s happy to do it.

And then, one day, James Griffin comes to his front door.

Keith’s going through his usual afternoon routine, polishing up some old parts he’s scavenged from the crash site of a Garrison test flight. They’re not as hasty to pick up the useless parts once they’ve combed the area for classified material and removed all of the sensitive stuff, and Keith’s good at what he does. He’s picked up more than a few toys from the cracked earth and biting sand of his home.

When someone knocks on his door, he almost doesn’t answer it. But then whoever it is knocks again, and that means that Keith isn’t going to get any peace and quiet until he answers. He sets aside the parts for later, wiping his hands off on his jeans, and goes to open the front door.

When it swings open, Griffin raises his eyes to meet Keith’s. There’s no hostility in his gaze, which is confusing and also a plus. So maybe he’s not here to gloat or pick a fight. Keith blinks at him for a moment. How did he even get this address? Keith barely even _has_ an address; it takes a map to find his house, or landmarks if you’re lucky.

Keith scowls at him. “What are you doing here?”

“You left,” Griffin says.

Okay, well that’s the obvious thing. Keith asks, “Did you want me to send you a goodbye note or something?” He’s not sure what Griffin expected. Quiet sessions in the cadet showers and savage insults in the simulators didn’t really add up to any sort of relationship in Keith’s mind. Griffin is the Garrison; Keith left the Garrison behind. It was as easy as that.

Apparently not.

“Well. No.” Griffin leans against the door jamb, running his hand through his hair. It tousles it just right. Keith’s almost offended; he thought that he had a monopoly on ridiculous hair arrangements. It makes sense, though, that Griffin would become his rival in something like that too. He waits, and Griffin says, “Look. You left, and we...we had a thing going. Not, like-” He gestures desperately- “You know. Not like _that.”_

“Like dating.” Someone’s gotta say it.

Griffin grimaces, but he nods. “I don’t know how else to say it, but. Uh. I can’t stop thinking about what we did.”

The showers. The first time, and all the times after that. Keith remembers. He can’t stop thinking about it either. They say you never forget your first time.

Keith’s cheeks feel hot. Something surprised and nervous and warm blooms in his stomach, urging him forward, and he licks his lips to try to banish the sudden dryness from his mouth. “And you came all the way out here to say that,” he rasps. “To my face.”

“Call it a hunch.”

Of course he’d say that. Of course he’d claim to know Keith and how he thinks and what he’d say yes to. He’s infuriating, and even worse, he was _right._

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Keith tells him, and he pulls Griffin through the doorway and into a kiss.

It’s exactly like he remembers from those blue-tinted memories of their time at the Garrison.

He leads Griffin to the bed, pulling off his Garrison uniform for him as they go. He mutters an insult into his mouth, some comment about how scrawny he is that has Griffin pushing him down onto his back on the mattress and climbing on top of him to kiss him senseless. Keith strains up and smiles into the kiss; he should insult Griffin more often.

It ends up being nothing like what happened in the showers. It’s so, so much better.

Afterwards, Griffin is quiet. He gets out of the bed and gets dressed with the clinical detachment of a doctor. It’s so far removed from how he’d just been acting that Keith almost doesn’t believe he’s the same person.

“Hey,” Keith says from the bed. They should talk about this, right? Don’t people talk about stuff like this?

Griffin turns to him, still buttoning up his jacket. “I don’t have much time,” he says. “I’ve got other stuff to do before I get back to the base.” He adjusts the fit of his cuffs, scowling down at them. “Did you pull at these?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Keith says, holding his hands up in surrender. “Promise.”

“Yeah, likely story.” Griffin bends to smooth out a wrinkle at the bottom of his pants. There wasn’t really a wrinkle to begin with, but Keith doesn’t have the energy to point that out. Knowing Griffin, they’d probably end up fighting over it.

Keith asks, “Are you gonna come back?”

Griffin’s hands pause in their quest to arrange his uniform. He looks over at Keith, eyes inscrutable and cast into shadow. “Not today, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He’d figured. “But later?” He asks that because it’s easier than _is this what we do now?_

“Later,” Griffin says shortly, and he slams the door on the way out.

Keith stays still until he hears the low, whining hum of Griffin’s bike start up. It idles for a second outside before revving and zooming away; the sound grows lower and lower as Griffin leaves him here in the middle of the desert, and eventually it’s gone completely.

Well.

That could have gone better.

 

* * *

 

Somehow, they make a habit of it.

On his days off, Griffin ends up in the desert with Keith. With nobody around for miles, it’s the perfect place for them to work out their aggression and tension on each other. It’s never tender, really, when they do it, and they don’t talk about exactly what they are. It usually goes like this: Keith, who usually hates the routine imposed by a calendar, spends the two days before the cadets’ scheduled vacation time checking the clock and the date. This increases in frequency with each passing hour or so. Griffin arrives right when he says he will, because he’s _perfect_ James Griffin, and lets himself into the house without much ceremony.

The specifics of what happens next are more fluid, depending on the day.

Some things are always constant. Griffin’s wordless, and he tugs Keith into a rough kiss as soon as the front door closes behind him. They stumble their way to the bedroom like that, stripping each other of clothes and uniforms until it’s just them, and Keith’s skin on Griffin’s. Griffin invariably finds a way to insult Keith even while he’s on his hands and knees, messing up Keith’s sheets. On the days when Keith’s feeling particularly zealous, the insults give way to begging while Keith’s still only got his fingers inside him.

Keith will never admit it, but Griffin looks good when he’s lit by the desert sun. There’s a reason why this is still a thing that’s ongoing, and it’s not for the conversation. Maybe it’s the way that the late afternoon sun catches the sharp line of his cheekbone when he throws his head back, or the tension that highlights the hard planes of his muscles when he sinks down onto Keith. He’s beautiful, really, but Keith won’t ever tell him that. That would be admitting some sort of defeat; some loss in the battle they’re fighting to be the best at flying, at fucking, at taking each other apart. Keith would rather die than lose.

But above all, one thing is always, always true: Griffin never stays.

Some days, he takes his time getting dressed after they’re done. In those times, they’re still riding the high they’ve shared, and Keith would be lying if he said that he doesn’t get a little affectionate. He hopes that Griffin doesn’t read too much into it. It’s not Keith’s fault that he likes to touch and be touched.

“You need to relax,” Keith tells him. He buries his nose in the nape of Griffin’s neck, mouthing along the line of skin between his hair and uniform collar. Griffin still smells like sweat and sex and Keith. He never showers here, no matter how much Keith teases him for how he smells. He’s ashamed, probably. Keith doesn’t really blame him. There’s no honor or glory in letting a failed cadet fuck you on your days off.

Griffin shrugs him off. “I don’t have time for games,” he mutters, and he stalks off in search of his shoes.

Keith watches him go, but decides not to pursue him this time. He flops back on the pillows, waiting for him to come back. He has to, since he left his bag next to the bed. He reaches for his phone and scrolls through it, scowling when he sees a new message from Shiro: he’s rescheduling their usual race. Something about going out with Matt Holt for drinks to celebrate something. _A job opportunity,_ Shiro says in the text, but he doesn’t elaborate. So it’s official Galaxy Garrison business. Fine. Okay.

He types out a quick affirmative and sends it out. At least now maybe he has time to make some modifications to his bike, and the roof needs repairs too. Maybe if he asks nicely enough, Griffin will bring him some of the materials the next time he comes to visit.

The sink runs in the bathroom, and then there comes the soft rhythm of Griffin’s footfalls through the house. They herald his arrival into the bedroom before he actually appears, and Keith blinks up at him from the bed.

Griffin raises an eyebrow. “What’s that look for?”

“They’re going to send the new transport models out to Saturn,” Keith says.

Across the room, Griffin makes a soft, disgusted noise. “Are you really going to do this again?” he asks.

There’s that tone again. Exasperation. He should have expected it, but Keith raises his chin and demands, “Do what, exactly?”

“Just let it go.”

“No.” Keith stands up and walks over to meet Griffin, narrowing his eyes. “No, what were you going to say?”

“Stop talking about the fucking stars like you’re getting anywhere near them, Keith,” Griffin snaps. “The Garrison’s your only chance of breaking atmo, and you threw that away. And why? Because you couldn’t stand following the rules and working in a team?”

Why is this such a sore spot for him? Keith mutters, “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

“Oh, do I?”

“You were part of the reason, asshole.” And he was. There were only so many snide comments he could take, and he was never in it for the competition, but that’s what it became anyway.

Griffin narrows his eyes. “Oh, I bet.”

It would be so easy to lean in and kiss him right now. Keith could very easily end this conversation and keep them here a while longer. He’d keep them here in the bedroom for far longer than either of them has any right to be; he’d probably make Griffin late getting back to the base. It’d serve him right.

But it’s been a while since Keith’s had a good fight. The bars in the town outside the Garrison are too full of officers to have a decent population of lowlifes. It’s mostly just Keith out of place, and nobody wants to fight the lonely kid who’s definitely too underage to be around them. Maybe Griffin will, though. Keith only sort of remembers how his fist had felt against the sharp lines of his cheekbone. He wouldn’t mind adding an updated memory of it to his extensive catalog of all of Griffin’s details. It would fit in nicely next to the smell of his cologne and the sound he makes when he comes.

He reaches out and fists his hand in Griffin’s shirt, pulling him close. “You don’t like me talking about flying a ship because you _know_ I’d be better than you.”

“But it doesn’t matter if you are,” Griffin growls back, close enough to kiss or kill. “Because you abandoned the Garrison. Just like your parents-”

“Don’t say another word,” Keith threatens.

Griffin’s lip curls. “Same old tricks,” he says. “It’s easy to get to you.”

Some part of him, deep and wild and furious, begs for violence.

“Fuck you,” Keith snarls. “Get out of my house.”

Griffin yanks himself out of Keith’s grasp with a sneer, adjusting his collar while he stalks away. He slams the door on his way out, because of course he does.

He leaves some of his papers. It serves him right. Keith almost throws them out, but he keeps them just in case Griffin comes back. It’ll be a nice reminder that _perfect_ James Griffin messed up for once. The anger is easy, and the spite as well.

It’s easier this way, really. It’s always been easier for them to be enemies than...whatever they are.

Keith hates to admit it, but he sort of misses him.

 

* * *

 

But Griffin still comes back.

 

* * *

 

The next time they see each other, Griffin comes in unannounced.

Keith looks up from his bike, still idly twisting the wrench around the bolt he’s trying to loosen. The damn thing isn’t working right, and he needs to get it into racing condition if he has any hope of beating Shiro in their usual race. Keith’s been looking forward to spending time with this bike, and after several days spent replacing his windows after a particularly bad dust storm, he finally has the time to sit down with the old girl and give her the attention she needs. She’s no fighter ship, but she does the job just fine.

“What?” Keith asks, putting the wrench down, because he really was not expecting visitors today. He was really, _really_ not expecting Griffin.

Griffin tosses his own bike helmet onto the seat with perhaps a little more force than necessary. “Fuck me,” he demands roughly, “or I’m leaving.”

And he stalks into the house.

Keith blinks at the door - his own front door, and not Griffin’s, thanks very much - for a few long moments. It takes that amount of time for him to process that yes, James Griffin just stormed into his house, and yes, he prefaced that with a demand for sex in the bluntest way Keith has ever heard. Keith’s not a stickler for romance by any means, but he thinks this takes the cake for most aggressive proposition. For him and Griffin, that’s an accomplishment all its own. The question, though, is whether or not he’s going to take it.

He stares mournfully at his bike. She’s silent and inert before him, not fully operational now that he’s started to break her down in order to build her back up again. He hates to leave the work unfinished and the bike scattered in pieces on his garage floor, but Garrison cadets don’t show up at his door every day.

“I’m sorry,” he tells the bike, patting a chrome piece in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “I’ll come back for you. We’ll beat Shiro together after I’m done.” Done with whatever baggage it is that Griffin’s decided to drag into this arrangement of theirs. He stands, wincing when some of his joints crack to accommodate him, and heads over to the house proper.

As expected, Griffin’s taken up a post by one of the windows. There’s a dangerous tension in the way he holds his shoulders that goes far beyond military control. Anger, probably. Keith’s good at recognizing that, at least.

He shuts the front door behind himself, folds his arms, and asks, “What the hell happened to you?”

Griffin turns from the window, and his eyes have a furious light in them. “Iverson set us back a year. Said we weren’t good enough.”

Keith stops short. “Iverson’s holding you back?” he repeats.

Jaw set in a tense, hard line, Griffin nods.

That’s unexpected. Ever since Keith left, it’s been well reported that Griffin’s team is one of the best in the Garrison’s newest crop of recruits. They’re all pilots and don’t really have a designated engineer or tech, sure, but they can work around that. It shouldn’t have put them back a whole year. “Fuck,” he says simply, because that’s all he can manage. “That sucks.”

“I did everything right,” Griffin insists.

“Then you can keep doing it.” Keith folds his arms. “Iverson’s not an idiot. He’s not going to stop you from being pilots if he knows what’s good for him.”

Griffin interrupts, “I didn’t come here to talk.”

Okay.

Well.

Keith can work with that.

He raises an eyebrow, jerks his head in the direction of the bedroom, and asks, “Then what the hell are you doing out here?”

Griffin’s eyes narrow, but Keith can sense the change in his mood from across the room. He’s still frustrated, sure, but the tension in his muscles shifts more to anticipation. He stalks across the room to stand before Keith for a moment, staring down at him. Keith stares back, daring him to make the first move. Griffin’s the one who came here, after all. He wonders if Griffin’s going to kiss him, but instead he inhales sharply and turns on his heel to head into the bedroom.

Keith follows him silently, not bothering to close the curtains or interior doors like he usually does. When Griffin’s over, it’s an unspoken rule that they keep this as quiet and as secret as possible. Keith insists that nobody’s going to bother them, and that nobody exists for miles around, but usually he ends up losing the argument. Today, though, it seems like neither of them cares enough to make the necessary arrangements. Nothing about today is planned. Nothing about it is normal.

Griffin waits by the bed, not moving, just standing stiffly at attention. He might still be wondering if he’s welcome here after how they left things. To be honest, Keith’s put the fight out of his mind. It certainly would have been more memorable if they’d fought with more than just words, but maybe it’s for the best that they hadn’t. Keith’s loathe to mess up a pretty face.

“On the bed,” he orders.

Griffin hesitates.

Keith scowls. “You came here for a reason, right? Take off your clothes and get on the bed, or I’m going back out to fix my bike.”

That seems to spur Griffin into surprised action, because he kicks off his shoes and starts roughly removing his uniform jacket. Keith tilts his head to watch him before stripping off his own filthy tee and stepping out of his pants. He’s impressed that that had worked. He wouldn’t actually make good on the threat. This level of desperation from Griffin is new, and Keith’s curious to see just how far it’ll take him.

“Lube?” Keith asks, and Griffin lunges across the bed to scramble through Keith’s bedside table for the tube of lubricant and the condoms he stashes there. Griffin’s the one who picks them out when he goes out on his days off; Keith had argued with his choice the first time, but Griffin had flipped him off and told him that if he wanted to choose, he could pay. Keith doesn’t really have a source of income, so he’d relented.

He does like the ones Griffin picks out, but he’ll never tell him that.

Griffin presses the lube into Keith’s hand, eyes burning, and then turns over, laying his head on one of Keith’s pillows. He turns his head to the side, staring sidelong at Keith, and says, “Ready when you are.”

Keith’s not talkative by any stretch of the imagination. He likes what he does with Griffin, and they’ve never needed to add conversation into the mix to make it exciting. But some part of Keith knows that it’s not a back-and-forth chat that Griffin needs. So as he works Griffin open, he says, “You needed this so bad that you didn’t even bother to call, didn’t you?”

Griffin breathes out through his nose sharply but doesn’t respond.

“You got held back and your _first thought_ was to come to my house to get fucked,” Keith says, half in wonder and half a tease. “You need this. You need me.”

“I don’t,” Griffin retorts.

“C’mon, cadet,” Keith purrs in his ear, and he shifts his hand forward, just a bit. He’s rewarded with a soft sigh from Griffin. That’s a start. It always takes a bit of work to get him to make any noise. With him wound up like this, it’ll probably take even longer. It’s worth it, though, to start to win the sounds from him once he lets himself go enough to vocalize his pleasure.

He can’t see Griffin’s face, but they’ve done this enough that Keith can gauge when he’s ready for more. Each time, he slides the new finger in slowly, listening to the quiet, wordless noises that get muffled into his pillow. The speed is the key. He knows Griffin needs this, but he’s not about to be a sadist about it. They take it slow where it counts.

By the end of it, Griffin’s grinding back on his fingers, making soft little sounds that might have been moans if he didn’t bite them off into the pillow. Keith knows he’s ready. He stretches past Griffin, nipping at his shoulder on the way over, and retrieves the condom that Griffin got out earlier. He rolls it on and strokes himself a couple of times, taking the opportunity to admire how Griffin looks like this, desperate and wanting. He’s not quite undone yet, but that’ll come with time. Keith’s patient when he wants to be.

When he starts to push in, he holds on tightly to the sharp angles of Griffin’s hips, digging his fingers in tightly enough to bruise. Griffin lets out a shaking breath that hitches when Keith holds him tighter, so he keeps doing it.

Keith starts out slow, building up a rhythm as he gets used to the feeling of Griffin all around him. It never gets old, really. He lets out a low groan when he bottoms out the first time, and he feels the way Griffin shudders beneath him. He’s not shy about the sounds he makes, and he never has been. It’s the best part about having his own house: he can do whatever he wants.

But Griffin’s still used to trying to be clandestine and unheard. Some part of him is still back at the Garrison, and it always will be. Keith’s determined to take apart all of the rest of him that’s here. He wants to hear the person Griffin is when he’s not a cadet. He wants perfect, _fucking perfect_ James Griffin to crack.

“I’m gonna need to hear how much you want this,” he says into Griffin’s ear. “If there’s any hope of you becoming a pilot, I expect to hear you beg for it.” He laughs a little bit, rolling his hips, and Griffin rocks back to meet him. “How would you like that? Would you like if I called you commander one day?”

“Yes,” Griffin bites out, hanging his head.

“I never want to be a cadet again. I never want to look at someone and call them sir,” Keith tells him, and he closes his eyes to focus on the rhythm of his hips, driving into Griffin with increasing speed. “But I’d make an exception.”

Griffin breathes, broken and desperate, “Keith.”

It sounds good in his voice. Keith says, “Griffin? Tell me what you want.”

“I-” He cuts himself off.

Keith moves one of his hands from Griffin’s hips to his cock, taking him in hand. That elicits a low moan from him, and Keith wants to hear it again. “Griffin,” he reminds him. “Tell me.”

“Please,” Griffin begs. “Please, I need to-”

He never really does beg all the way. Keith thinks it’s his pride that keeps him from saying it out loud. There are ways to work around it. He knows what Griffin wants.

“Do you think you’ve earned it?”

Frantically, Griffin nods, and his hips stutter out of rhythm while he struggles between thrusting forward into Keith’s hand and pressing backwards to meet his hips. Keith decides to help him out and syncs up his motions, pushing Griffin into his waiting hand with every thrust. Griffin whines and fists his hands in the sheets.

Keith grins, tossing his sweaty hair out of his face. “I need to hear you ask for it, Griffin.”

“Keith!” he cries, and then, softer, but no less wrecked: “Sir, _please-”_

That’s enough. Fuck, that’s more than he’d hoped to get. Keith presses his face into Griffin’s hair, nosing along until he finds an ear to nip on. “That’s it,” he pants out, snapping his hips forward again. “Fuck, Griffin, you’re so good.”

Griffin moans again, wordless and desperate this time.

“Let go,” Keith orders, because his thrusts are starting to fall out of rhythm; he’s getting close too. Hearing Griffin like this is more than enough to put him over the edge. “C’mon, Griffin, please.”

It’s enough: Griffin cries out, and he spills over Keith’s fingers, hips stuttering forward. Keith follows him with a moan, working out his release into Griffin’s body until they’re both oversensitive and shaking.

In the moments after, it’s just the two of them catching their breath. Griffin hangs his head, incredibly silent after the noise he was making not a minute before. He does that sometimes, slipping out of his head for a bit before he comes back to himself. Keith knows it’s one of the only times he lets himself lose control.

Keith pulls out carefully, absently pressing a kiss against Griffin’s spine as he does, and rolls off the bed to take care of the condom. In the bathroom, he stares at himself in the mirror, incredibly aware of the dust on his face from when he’d been working on the bike, and the way that his hair sticks to his face in some places. He could use a shower, sure, but not right now. Keith wets a washcloth, squeezes out the excess water, and wordlessly passes it to Griffin as he gets back into bed. He’ll need to change the sheets anyway, but he’s not a monster; he’s not gonna force Griffin to get all sticky just because he refuses to shower here.

Griffin gives himself a few cursory wipes, movements still leaden and slow, before placing the washcloth on the bedside table and sinking face first into the pillow again.

Keith settles in beside him. As a courtesy, he pulls the sheets up over them both, flopping down on his back. He pushes his hair out of his face, staring up at the ceiling. The cracks up there are suddenly incredibly interesting.

“Thank you,” Griffin says into the pillow, and it’s so muffled that Keith’s pretty sure that it was just a wordless grunt at first. It wouldn’t be the first time; Griffin’s not the talkative type, and neither is he.

This time, though, he’s relatively sure that he heard him correctly, so he asks, “Did I just fuck an alternate version of you, or did you just thank me?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“You should call me sir all the time, cadet.”

“Fuck you.”

Keith kicks Griffin’s leg from under the covers. “You wish you could.”

Griffin lifts his head from the pillow to glare at Keith. “I could.”

In his defense, he does.

It’s a different feeling, bracing himself on his knees and the headboard with Griffin’s chest pressed against his back. He doesn’t hate it, and he likes how more often than not, he ends up with teeth digging into his shoulder. If this is what Griffin needs too, then Keith will let it happen.

Griffin ends up ditching his team because he stays late with Keith. He was supposed to meet them at a bar back in town since it’s their day off, but he’s stayed too long here already and he’ll be late. “Besides,” he tells Keith later, tapping away at his phone as he appeases Leifsdottir, Rizavi, and Kinkade, “we’ll just be complaining about Iverson anyway, and that’s no fun after a while.”

Keith doesn’t exactly make dinner, but he does offer Griffin some fruit. Griffin takes an apple, and Keith does too, and they stand across from each other in the kitchen, resolutely avoiding eye contact. It’s been a while since Keith’s had company for this long.

_I’d make an exception._

Keith finds himself wondering if he meant it.

 

* * *

 

Things change a bit after that day.

After the Kerberos mission, Griffin almost seems sorry. Keith didn’t think he had it in him.

But there’s something in the way that he kisses Keith on the cheek in the middle of sex, pushing his hair out of his face to get to him. Keith passes it off as a fluke; they’re desperate and rushed and flooded with endorphins. It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t mean anything.

For once, he sticks around afterwards. The sun’s setting already, but Griffin doesn’t rush out like he usually does. He burrows under the sheets while Keith sits on the edge of the bed to fix one of his boots. They’re quiet, because they’re not the talkative sorts, and that’s okay.

“Hey,” Griffin says.

“Hm?”

“Did you know you have birthmarks here?” he asks, and there’s a warm finger on his back, tracing an arc down one shoulder blade, and then another.

Keith tries and fails to suppress a shiver. “Birthmarks?” he repeats. Of course he knows they’re there. It’s his body. But some part of him is curious to hear what Griffin has to say.

“They’re like stripes,” Griffin tells him, and there’s a sleepy, content note in his voice that Keith doesn’t think he’s ever heard before.

Deciding to humor him, Keith asks, “Racing stripes?”

“Fuck you,” Griffin says without any real bite in the words. He places another finger on Keith’s skin, skittering over the raised marks he’d left with his nails earlier that day. “No. Like...I dunno. Tiger stripes.” He presses down on the spot where one of them must be, and Keith hisses out a sigh. Working alone in the desert isn’t easy on the back, but Griffin seems to have easily found a spot that eases some of the aches. “They’re kind of red. Kind of purple. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Keith looks over his shoulder, and for once Griffin doesn’t meet his eyes with a challenge. He’s still focused on Keith’s back, and on the birthmarks he’s finally seemed to notice after all of this time they’ve spent in this bed over the past several months. The late afternoon light has turned his eyes dark in shadow, but a bit of it has caught the iris of his left eye, turning it the dark, crystalline violet that it truly is. Like this, at rest, Griffin almost looks serene.

He certainly looks beautiful.

There’s that old intrusive thought again; Keith banishes it with a little mental twitch. This was never supposed to be about feelings. This thing between them is aesthetic and physical only; that’s all it was ever meant to be. It serves a purpose for both of them. Keith can’t afford to think of him like that.

It’s tempting, though.

Griffin seems to notice that he’s being watched, because his gaze ticks up to meet Keith’s. “Your back’s all tense.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.” Griffin pokes more purposefully at Keith’s back, and this time Keith can’t completely stifle the quiet sound he makes against his will. Griffin seems triumphant. “And you tell me _I_ need to relax,” he says, and there it is: the ghost of a smile. He looks good when he’s happy. He looks content.

It’s the softest he’s ever seen Griffin, after all this time.

Later, Keith leans against the door frame to watch Griffin wander out to where he’s parked his Garrison-issue speeder. It’s a fast thing, and Griffin pilots it like a dream and looks damn good doing it. Keith keeps offering to upgrade it for him when he visits, but he’s not been able to convince him yet. Something about sticking with Garrison regulations, and how the mechanics at the base will find the ways Keith’s tweaked the speed functions. Keith thinks it’s bullshit, but he’s not about to start a fight over something as trivial as a few extra miles per hour.

Griffin lingers. “Hey,” he says. He stares down at his helmet for a moment, holding it tightly in his hands, and then meets Keith’s eyes. “I, uh. I’m sorry about Shirogane. I know you-” He stops. “Um. You cared.”

Keith narrows his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, he was my friend.” _Is_ his friend. Shiro’s not dead. He’s not dead.

Griffin’s lips set into a thin line, and he nods. “Yeah. Uh. I’ll see you.”

“See you,” Keith echoes. This is the first time they’ve done a farewell like this. They’re both new to this sort of interaction.

It almost looks like Griffin’s about to say something more, but he nods again, puts on his helmet, and slings a leg over his bike to settle in. He revs the engine, letting the mechanical whine of it echo across the miles of empty terrain, and speeds off into the night.

 

* * *

 

Shiro crash lands on Earth, and everything changes.

He’d broken into the quarantine area around the crash site hoping for some sort of lead on the signs he’s been picking up for ages. There are signs, of course, in the form of an alien ship, but there’s also Shiro. And then there are three other people - _cadets_ \- that apparently want to get their hands on Shiro too, so it seems like they’re in this together. They’re all vaguely familiar from his time in the Garrison. One’s got the same mousy look as Matt Holt, but the name’s all wrong. Another’s got warm eyes that Keith recognizes immediately, even if he can’t quite remember the guy’s name. And another claims to be Keith’s rival, but the memory of him is...hazy at best.

None of them are the type of familiar he’d almost been expecting, though. In hindsight, Griffin would never break the rules. Not even for Shiro, or for knowledge, or for the chance to learn more about the stars.

Keith brings Shiro back to the house, kicking aside a crumpled Garrison packet that Griffin must have left behind, and the other cadets stay too. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge gather around his wall of notes and theories, whispering to each other about what they could mean. Pidge seems most interested of all of them, and she’s got notes of her own that she’s consulting. So Keith’s not crazy. There’s something out there, and it’s connected to Shiro.

Keith watches them and wonders how this became his life.

“What’s this?” Shiro asks, and when Keith turns to see him, he’s holding up the packet. “Did you rejoin while I was gone or something?”

Keith’s stomach does a curious lurching maneuver that it hasn’t attempted since his last simulator flight. “Uh. No.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow but says nothing more. Something in Keith’s heart sinks, because that expression looks dangerously close to disappointment or doubt.

Keith puts it out of his mind. There are more important things than someone discovering that he’s been sleeping with his enemy for the past couple years.

Besides, things get complicated, and they find a mysterious alien ship that somehow recognizes or accepts Lance, and they’re leaving Earth together. Keith ends up accepting it. This is what he’s hoped for, right? The chance to leave the Garrison and find adventure somewhere deep within the starfields?

And maybe one of his wild, desperate thoughts as he rockets into space at the mercy of the Blue Lion-

_Fuck._

_I didn’t tell Griffin I was leaving._

 

* * *

 

Saving the universe is hard work.

So is getting to know the others. It’s been years since Keith’s even attempted to stick around in groups of more than two or three. It’s not like he’s ever wanted to, and he liked to have his space at his house, for the most part. Shiro had visited before Kerberos, of course, and so had Griffin, before and after and in between. It had been a peaceful life.

Life in the castle is less so.

It’s all about teamwork and sharing here. Allura and Coran are fun once Keith gets used to having millennia-old aliens for friends, and the other humans are certainly not the worst people he’s ever met. Somewhere along the way, they become paladins instead of cadets.

Keith’s never been part of a team. Not really, or at least not one that he’s cared about. But forming Voltron and saving the others doesn’t feel like a chore. It just feels right.

And when he finds out he’s Galra, and that part of him has always belonged to distant stars, that feels right too.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere along the way, Keith falls in love.

It’s not with Griffin.

Griffin is thousands of light years away in a galaxy Keith hasn’t seen for years. He’s complicated and he’s a cadet and he’d never been able to understand Keith’s desperation to see the stars.

Yeah. The thing with Griffin is complicated. It’s something that still gnaws at the back of his mind when he doesn’t have the energy to force it down. It’s something that still aches. That’s not to say that this new love isn’t, but it’s an easier sort of hurt. It’s a hurt in his heart that means he misses Shiro when he’s gone, and that he’d throw himself off a thousand cliffs and tumble into starlight for him. Shiro’s sort of hurt is a scar on his cheek and the desperation to see him wake up. It’s _come back to me._ It’s _as many times as it takes._

So Keith forgets about Earth, and about Griffin, and it’s easier that way.

Late at night, he lies alone in his bunk in the Black Lion, and he thinks-

_Well._

_We were never even dating in the first place._

 

* * *

 

When he returns to Earth, it’s shattered.

Sendak has taken their home planet in his hand and crushed the life out of it. The cities are rotting, Galra installations jut out from the ground, and cruiser after cruiser swarms above the place they’d once known. Nobody says it, but as they trek through the ruins of the nearest city to the Garrison base, Keith can feel their guilt.

_We let this happen._

Griffin’s the one who brings them home, but Keith doesn’t even recognize him until they’re safely within the boundaries of the Garrison’s base and he’s taken off his helmet.

He’s grown up too.

The war has taken away pretty much anything that isn’t muscle or bone. It’s not as if he was ever very far from skinny anyway, but it’s clear in his face that he’s been living on rations. But maybe that’s just how he’s aged, trading his last baby fat for sharp cheekbones and a broad chest. His hair is just the same, still styled according to regulation with just a little bit of the flair that Keith used to tease him for. Griffin had called him a hypocrite, and Keith had laughed, and-

He’s getting off topic.

It occurs to Keith, all at once, that he’s younger than Griffin now. He might have gained two years in the quantum abyss, but then he was out of phase with reality along with the rest of Voltron for three years after detonating the castle.

Keith takes off his own helmet and stares.

Griffin’s eyes, from across the way, gain an unidentifiable light.

There’s no time to talk. There are officers to talk to, and plans to make, and as leader of Voltron he’s expected to give them a full debrief. Shiro and Allura help him prepare the intel that they have, paring it down to the bare bones he needs to give to them before the planning starts in earnest. Sam’s already told them a lot, from what he’s managed to inform them on in the few hours since they’ve gotten to the Garrison’s last stronghold.

When it comes time for him to give his presentation, they’ve settled in as well as they can at the Garrison. Shiro has a new arm, Pidge is busy loading up the castle’s memory cores, and they’re all wearing new Garrison-issue uniforms. It feels demeaning, somehow, to be a cadet again. That’s all he ever was to them, and apparently all he ever will be, despite everything he’s done for the universe. He hope that saving Earth will be worth a promotion.

He shows them intel from Krolia, and along the way he pulls up a picture of her. He swallows, throws all caution to the wind, and calls her his mother.

There’s a general hush that falls over the conference room. Beside him, Shiro tenses, and the fingers of his mechanical hand clench into a loose fist on the table, like the threat of a fight. The other paladins do the same, shifting in their Garrison uniforms. Keith’s privately pleased by their reaction. After everything, they’d still step up to defend him. Like a family.

But Iverson’s the first to recover, and Keith really thinks that he’s starting to like the guy. “Then that’s valuable intel. You have an in with the Galra?”

“Not the empire, per se,” Keith says, leaning forward. He points at Krolia’s uniform. “She’s part of the Blade of Marmora, a Galra resistance group that’s been running for ten thousand years.” His hand itches for his blade, but his mom has it, so he just settles for pulling up another image beside his mother’s face: the two of them in uniform, with Kolivan behind them. “Listen. I’m one of them too, and I do missions when I’m not with Voltron and the paladins. If you see any Galra in these uniforms or carrying blades with that symbol, you can trust them.”

Iverson nods sagely. “Holt mentioned them. We didn’t hear much from them even after our distress signal went out.”

“They were dealing with the fallout of the empire’s collapse,” Keith says. He pauses. “We lost a lot of agents.”

“Hm.” Iverson frowns. “Condolences.”

Keith shrugs.

Iverson and Sanda start up a conversation on how they’d possibly be able to get in contact with the Marmora, and that has Coran fired up, and the three of them go back and forth on the finer points of intergalactic communication. Keith’s just glad that Sam isn’t here to put in his two cents, or they’d be here all day talking about the other rebel groups and Matt’s involvement in them. Already, Pidge’s looking antsy.

It’s going to be a while before Keith can finish his presentation. He sits back in his chair with a sigh, tapping his fingers on the boardroom table. The initial shock of his announcement seems to have faded. The people of Earth have dealt with the Galra for years; to find out one of their defenders is a half-blood alien is probably low on their list of concerning scenarios. Everyone in the room either looks bored by or invested in the argument over long-distance communication through a Galra blockade.

Except for one.

Griffin’s still staring at the image of Krolia, eyes violet-wide and face paler than usual. His eyes flicker from one feature to the next. Keith can imagine what he’s focusing on: the yellow gleam of her eyes, the dark violet cast of her skin, and the striped markings along her face.

Subconsciously, Keith finds himself raising a hand to run along the scar on his cheek. It does look like Krolia’s markings, really. But there’s something else, a memory nearly four years old, that comes up, tinged in late afternoon sunlight. Yeah, that’s it: Griffin with the sheets pooled around his waist, running his fingers along Keith’s back.

_Tiger stripes._

He wasn’t far off.

Griffin’s smart as all hell; he knows how to follow patterns and draw conclusions of his own. Keith’s not quite sure how he never thought of the resemblance himself.

Shiro nudges him with his flesh-and-blood shoulder, knocking him out of his reverie. “You did good,” he says quietly, just loudly enough that only Keith can hear, and Keith is pretty sure his cheeks go warm. Praise is hard enough. Praise from Shiro is a monster all its own. He looks down at his hands, trying and failing to suppress a smile.

When he looks back up, the argument is over and he can continue. Before changing to the next image in his briefing, Keith hazards a glance to where Griffin stands with the other MFE pilots beside the boardroom table. For once, he’s not attentive, frowning down at a spot somewhere on the floor.

Keith frowns, but he continues the presentation. There are more important things to worry about.

It becomes harder and harder to find the time to see Griffin. Every bit of free time is taken up with planning, and when he’s not free he’s fighting or flying or telling people about the plans he came up with in his free time. Griffin ends up becoming part of that. He’s still a cadet too, and for that Keith feels sorry - in wartime, he should have been able to graduate on the spot. But even as a cadet, he and his team have been given the most advanced fighter ships Earth has ever created. Keith might even feel a little proud.

They’ve never done a combat mission together before, but Keith comes to realize that they fall into the same rhythms. The context is different, of course, but the important stuff remains unchanged. When Keith leans in close to peer around a corner, Griffin goes still in order to give him the best view. When the two of them are pinned behind cover and fending off attacks from multiple sentries, they switch off who rises up to fire off a few shots. The wolf brings Keith in and out of the compound, but in the end, he brings him back to Griffin’s side.

He meets Griffin’s eyes in between hails of glowing bullets, and he finds that they gleam just the same, even from behind a helmet’s tinted visor.

There’s no time to talk at the end of the world. Even if they did, Keith’s not sure what he would say.

So they follow orders, and they make a good team for once, and when Keith’s assigned to Griffin’s MFE on the way to assault the Zaiforge cannons, he thinks maybe it’s the universe’s way of laughing at him for leaving.

There’s no conversation even when it’s just the two of them in the fighter, soaring towards the Galra base. Keith closes his eyes to turn out any thought that is not Black and her infinite, starlit consciousness. He’s walked over those ethereal plains only a few times before, but now he understands what Shiro meant all those times.

He knows Black.

He sees through her eyes.

When he turns his head to look around, it’s Black’s head that moves, staring out at Saturn looming behind him. He turns back, and the other lions rise and roar in greeting. He can see the others in them. He _sees_ them.

Black takes flight, and he learns what it feels like to forge through space on four legs.

Keith’s not quite sure how much time passes, but when he opens the eyes of his real body, the body that he recognizes as Keith, a dark shadow looms above him. He stares up, and he can’t help his breathless laugh.

“I missed you, Black,” he tells her, and something in their connection ripples through like a greeting, wordless and older than humanity.

“So that’s what you do,” Griffin says, and then, softer, on their private comms line, “Paladin.”

Hearing it from him sends a chill down Keith’s spine.

“Great job,” Shiro says warmly into all of their ears. “Now get to the lions. Keith.”

“Hm?” he asks absently, staring up in wonder at Black soaring above him. She’s a wonder to see in motion, and it’s rare that he sees her from outside anymore. Is this how other people feel when he flies past?

“We’re counting on you. I know you can do it.” There it is: that softer catch in Shiro’s voice, like he’s smiling. Maybe he is, all the way back with the Garrison where he’s safe. It’s nice to think about.

Keith smiles back, and he hopes it carries through in his voice while he says, “Thanks, Shiro. Paladins, let’s do this.”

The others radio in their enthusiastic affirmatives. With Lance back online, they’re going to be unstoppable.

“Thanks for the ride,” Keith says into the private line to Griffin as he unstraps. “Give ‘em hell.”

“Yeah,” Griffin says, and his voice is tighter than usual. “Yeah, you too.”

There’s not enough time to parse through the finer points of Griffin’s tone. The mission has always, always come first, and Keith’s still riding the high of the success of summoning the lions from across the solar system. He adjusts his helmet, stares up at Black to plan his course, and ejects.

Black welcomes him like he’s come home. In a way, he has. He runs his hands along her controls as he settles down, and he smiles.

This is going to go well.

 

* * *

 

It does, and it doesn’t.

It takes weeks for him to recover.

He dreams of meteorites and clones, and of the quantum abyss. He dreams of all the brothers and sisters within the Marmora that he’s lost, and of the countless planets that fell to ruin while Voltron leaped between dimensions. He dreams of falling into starlight with another hand clasped in his.

And he dreams of late afternoon sun on pale skin, and of soft fingers running down his spine.

Keith wakes up to see Shiro giving a speech with the lions arranged behind him, and he smiles.

 

* * *

 

Griffin visits him a few days after he emerges from the coma. Or rather, Keith wakes up one morning, and Griffin’s the only one in the room, hands in the pockets of his civvies, staring out at the shattered remains of their planet.

Of all the people Keith expected to visit, he hadn’t really considered Griffin. Or he had, and he’d filed all thoughts of him away, because everything about James Griffin has always been too complicated to parse through.

In this light, silhouetted starkly by the sun, he looks good. Keith’s not blind; he’ll admit it. In the days that they’d had before the assault on the Zaiforge cannons and Sendak’s fleet, there hadn’t been much time to do anything but fight, sleep, and plan. They’d talked, sure, but it’d been strictly professional, following mission objectives. Keith’s seen his face, but he hasn’t _seen_ him.

Now, looking at him from behind, it’s easy to recognize the cadet he left behind on Earth. His hair is still shorn according to code, and he’s stock still in a way that suggests parade rest. The image is offset by the well-worn jeans, beat-up sneakers, and heavy leather jacket he’s wearing. Keith doesn’t remember the last time he ever saw Griffin in civilian clothes. One of the days off, perhaps. Maybe those are his clothes that Griffin’s wearing right now. It wouldn’t be entirely out of the question.

That puts a curious gnawing ache in his chest, so he stops thinking about it.

But it’s interesting to consider how he’d thought of him: the cadet he left behind. As if he was Keith’s to leave in the first place.

Keith clears his throat to let him know he’s awake.

At the sound, Griffin’s head turns towards him, just slightly, but his stiff posture doesn’t change. He’s still military, even now. He never did learn how to let go.

“Griffin,” Keith says, and that’s enough.

“I never stood a chance, did I?”

Keith looks down at his hands. He should’ve known that this is why Griffin would come: to acknowledge this weird, unspoken thing, and the tension between them since their days in the Garrison. The fights when they were cadets, but then the moments afterwards as well. Those rare days of vacation that had always found Griffin in Keith’s lonely little home in the middle of the desert, trading touches that were half insult and half prayer. It’s not exactly a lie that he doesn’t know what to say. There’s an easy answer, and he could say it, but that just feels like rubbing salt in the wound. So he stays carefully, anxiously silent, waiting for whatever Griffin has to say.

Maybe it wasn’t the right choice. Griffin huffs out a short, mirthless laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Keith opens his mouth to at least attempt to reply, but Griffin beats him to it.

“I’m not what you need. You’re out in space, fighting aliens, _being_ an alien, and I-” He stops short and hangs his head. His hair, usually perfectly in regulation style, falls over his eyes. It’d almost be like looking in a mirror, if Keith just focused on the hair and the misery. “I knew there was a reason,” Griffin says softly, “that the MFEs are short range.”

Oh. _Oh._

Keith says, carefully, “Griffin, I’m not keeping you from going to space-”

“But you are,” Griffin interrupts. “You are, because I know you’re out there, and that I’d only ever be chasing you.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s the easiest thing to say, but maybe not what either of them needs. It certainly leaves Keith hollow enough. He swallows around his pride and his fear, and he tries for the first time, “James.”

Griffin flinches; the hard line of his shoulders turns inward, going defensive. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “I’ll see you around, Paladin,” he mutters, and he turns on his heel to march out of the hospital room.

And Keith lets him go.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [earthspaladins](http://www.earthspaladins.tumblr.com) for more writing and my descent into jeith and sheith hell!


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